Make It Monday 239

Today's "Make It Monday" was about customizing patterened paper and Lizzie Jone's use of polkadot  patterened paper gave me the idea for this card.  

Yellow. Pink and green sure looked perfect for an Easter card.  I used PTI's  "Hippity Hoppity" stamp and die set, along with Copic pens for extra color.

this was a fun card to make!

Paper Crafting Alphabet

This was such a fun challenge, -another one from Papertreyink's Birthday Celebration.

The challenge was to choose elements of your card, based on the letters of your name.  

Based on that, my elements were:

P = Use Pink somewhere in your project (the flowers)

O = Incorporate some kind of ombre effect (watercolored background)

LL = Lean your sentiment at an angle ( Thank You )

Y = Incorporate a shade of yellow

This was really fun!  (Though I admit I had to fuss with it a lot before 

I came up with the final results.). 

I used the "Branched Out" die to make a stencil and create the backgroound leaves.  The flowers are from "Vintage linens" and the framis is from the "Sprinkles" dies collection. I added a sketch-y quality with a black Sharpie pen.

A PTI Thank You Card

L

Lots of contests on Papertreyink this week, celebrating their 9th anniversary!
The challenge for this card was to make a "Thank You" card for the staff that packs and ships all our stuff so beautifully and efficiently.  I used PTI's Black and White paper with the outline design already applied.  Next was a die (Enclosed: Present) to create the gift and the tag.  I added the great big gold bow from the same set.   And a few touches of flowers with Copic pens.

Another set of Flowers

I was really taken by this example presented in the class -- it looked perfect for a sympathy card I wanted to make.  I loved the misty quality and the diagonal composition. And now I keep a scrap piece of watercolor paper nearby to test strokes and pigment with before I apply my brush!  

This is the best class ever and I'm learning so much about brush techniques!!

Day Five - Expressive Flowers and Leaves

This was the best of the bunch!  I'm catching on to the brush strokes; used a larger brush and did better with layering color.  This is one of those cards that would be hard to send away!

Day 4 - Watercolor Class

This was a practice session on using brush techniques to create depth.  It actually came from a larger piece of watercolor paper.  I chopped off a section that looked OK and made it into this card.  My biggest challenge is to keep things from getting muddy by applying too much pigment too early,  After I finished the card I went in and removed some from the flowers so they'd have more depth.

Day one -Watercolor Class

Wow!  A new watercolor class for card makers has started.  I loved the first one I took a year or two ago.  It was so inspiring - and this one is nothing short of AMAZING!  I knew quite a bit about working with watercolor as a medium and mixing and blending colors, but this is on a whole new level for me because so much of it is based on the use of what I would call Asian-inspired watercolor techniques that are based on using pure brush strokes to create imagery,  First thing I had to do was go out and get some more brushes.  

This exercise was about creating an ombré effect using a flat brush and blending/bleeding two colors together.  I used it to create this simple but dramatic card with a butterfly and a few sequins for accents.